Racism Inside And Out

There is a scene in the original Matrix aboard the Nebuchadnezzar with Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, and Cypher, played by Joe Pantoliano. Neo looked at the various views screens Cypher was using to monitor the activity within the Matrix. All Neo could see where a series of repetitious symbols and couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was looking at. Cypher tried to explain to Neo how it just becomes natural that he will learn to translate the code into what it represents in the Matrix. Later in the movie Neo has his epiphany right after he recovers from a gunshot from Agent Smith. Not only does Neo learn to translate the code into what it represents, he can no longer see the representation without seeing the code. In other words, he sees the world of the Matrix as the bits and bytes that it really is and the façade of what he used to perceive as reality is no longer seeable. This was the subject of an article written back in March titled the Matrix.

When an individual experiences their epiphany to western culture, they will be able to see the code of racist perceptions and propaganda being emitted in nearly every insignificant dribble coming at us though out the spectrum referred to as media. Sometimes it is very subtle. There was an advertisement for some kitchen product in a magazine I saw once. I can’t remember the product. It could’ve been kitchen sinks or cabinets or linoleum. But I do remember that there were three couples in the advertisement. Two of the couples were white while the third couple were obviously black but very light complexioned. Everyone was smiling and having a good time. The man and woman of the two white couples were paired up and touching each other, making physical contact with each other, one couple would have the man’s arm around the woman while the other couple was holding hands and making eye contact. But the black man and the black woman were on opposite sides of the kitchen, on opposite sides of the photograph, not even acknowledging each other. The black couple was clearly focused, almost enviously, on the playfulness of the two white couples. The black couple was smiling just as big as their white counterparts, but they were clearly just admiring the moment of frivolity instead of partaking.

But, sometimes the racism is very bold and blatant. Like the advertisement featured in the photo above (the photo came courtesy of Field Negro) showing the image of six muscular black bucks who appear to be bowing at the feet of some dorky white guy with the smuggest of attitudes, who’s obviously pulling their strings. The message is white brains behind black brawn. The message is a reinforcement of the propaganda of the NFL faked for years that it took a white man to be the quick thinking quarterback to the otherwise all black lineup. It takes a white coach to win an NBA title with an all black starting lineup. And the fact of the matter is that if this white guy did have a small business that required six employees he would never hire six qualified black people as his only employees. After all, white people are rarely comfortable in an environment where they are outnumbered by other ethnicities unless they are armed and armored.

Intel can profess naïve ignorance in the entire matter. But Intel cannot dismiss the fact that this particular advertisement was suggested, approved, fully developed, distributed, and then somebody thought that it may be insensitive to African Americans and it needs to be recalled. I may be a little harsh in my judgment but Intel is far from being a neophyte to the world of advertising. This entire incident is much more than just a reenactment of the original GEICO Caveman commercial. Somebody in the corporate world at the Intel corporation headquarters has some latent insensitivity to the black community. But Intel is far from being the only one.

Like the ubiquitous green code of the Matrix racist propaganda is emanating from just about any and every corner of existence that is intertwined with the white dominated corporate world. Corporate America could not care any less if black people are offended or not. The corporate community knows that the collective voice of anger of black people is far from being unanimous. If this was to get national attention there will be some black pundit that would be more than happy to tell black people to get over themselves and look at the messages from gangsta rap. Oprah will be ready to do her groundbreaking show entitled, “Are Blacks Fair To Intel”.

Corporations know that the black community’s collective memory is short. Today it’s Intel. Tomorrow it’ll be somebody else who is brazen enough, following the example of Don Imus, or supposedly just incompetent enough, such as this latest example from Intel, to let insensitive and insulting messages regarding African Americans slip past their corporate gates and into the public domain. It’s not an accident. It is typical racist American propaganda.